Meltdown Webinar Oct 3rd 2025 Mary Kostka

Hello, Hello. I am just getting set up here. Welcome, welcome. Alrighty, there we go. Let's see. All right, welcome everybody. Put your. Put in the chat where you're watching from. I know we have people signed up from all around the country. Good morning, Narissa, you're the first one to sign up or to sign in, I should say. All right. Las Vegas, New Jersey, Texas, Alabama, Iowa, North Carolina, North Carolina, Oregon, Missouri, New Mexico, Houston, New Mexico, New Orleans. Oh my gosh, this is so fun. I always love seeing where everybody's watching from. Arkansas, Long Island, Florida, California, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia. Hey. Okay, while we're waiting for everybody to hop on here, another thing would be fun is to just put on here. If you're, if you're a parent, a teacher, a therapist, just kind of what your, your role is with, with kids that are having meltdowns, why you're here. Parent, teacher, grandparent. Yeah, I meant to say grandparent. Auntie. Oh, I love it. Early interventions, got therapists. Oh, foster. Yes, I should have said that too. Foster, grandparent, adaptive teacher, daycare. Oh, I love it. This is going to really help you guys. Mental health. Yes. Got the right people here. I'm excited. And I'm in, in Washington state and I'm at my mom's house. She's 86 and because I live up on a mountain and my Internet is a little bit, little bit unpredictable, hers is much more predictable. So my mom's apartment here in Lenworth, Washington, it is a Bavarian style town. It's a little terse town. It's really cute. If you're ever in Washington. Definitely check it out. Furia, Illinois. I grew up in Romeoville from 10 to 18, Nebraska. All right, I think we're going to get started here. Hey, welcome, welcome. I am so glad that you are here and we are going to work on helping to stop meltdowns and have way more fun with our kids. And so I already kind of asked this question because I asked what your role is, but do you have a child in your life who has autism, ADHD behavior or sensory struggles? So just type in yes. If you have somebody in your life, definitely have all the right people here. Awesome. Okay. And there are still some people hopping on, but that's all right. It's recorded too and you'll get sent the replay. So if you miss anything, don't worry. So sometimes you don't have a diagnosis, but you just might have a child that just seems different and just regular parenting stuff is just doesn't seem to work. If that's you type in yes as well? Yeah. You know, a lot of our kids that come to our clinic, they don't really have a diagn diagnosis, but the. There's a lot of kind of generalized diagnoses that, or. Or descriptive, Behavioral. Descriptive diagnoses that the. That the doctors end up giving. And that seems to work pretty good. And a lot of them might have autism, but they just are on a wait list to get. To get diagnosed. All right. And so do you want them to feel peace and empowerment? Just type in peace if you're like, yes, I definitely want them to feel more peaceful. And you want to feel more peaceful. Right. It's a little overwhelming when our kids are melting down a little over stimulating to us. So I definitely. Everybody wants more peace, for sure. So my goal is to help you become a child sensory hero. So I'm creating this whole movement of just sensory hero parenting and grandparenting and teaching. And so the goal is that these strategies will help elevate your parenting success so you'll feel more successful. So the main goal today is to increase your detective and solution skills for meltdowns. And I just realized it's like really hot in my mom's apartment. So I'm going to take one second to put the fan on. I'll be right back. Okay, I am back. Type in okay if, if I still sound okay or if. If the fan's too loud, I'll turn it down. Okay, perfect. Okay. So the main goal is that you're going to feel confident. That's. That's what I want for you. And I think something that's really important that I'm always helping parents understand is it's not your fault. The stuff I'm going to share is not common knowledge at all. And usually our parents just feel this weight coming off of them. If you stay to the end, I'm going to answer all the questions at the end. And so if you stay to the end of the questions, I have a free gift for you. And the other thing is be sure any questions you have. As I'm going through all of this, there's a separate place where you can put your questions, and then I'll actually answer all the questions at the end if they. Otherwise they just get buried in the chat and I. And I might miss it. So just put all you. And if you see somebody put a question. I don't have any helpers today, so if you see somebody put a question in the chat, just say, hey, remember she said put it in the. In the Questions because I want to make sure I get to answer everybody's questions. All right, great. All right. So I've been where you are unsure but determined, determined to get the answers, determined to figure out how to help, you know, seeing kids struggle and become distressed. And for me, learning a new approach made all the difference. So my clinic, I am the owner and founder of Ohana Occupational Therapy in Wenatchee, Washington, and we're 17 years old now. We have treated thousands of kids. And the one thing that we consistently see in our clinic and is that we get to get to the. Get to the place where the children are thriving. So our whole thing is helping families thrive and seeing parents relieve because they have the, you know, they have the tools to help their child. And their confidence is boosted. The kids confidence, the parents confidence. And it helps accelerate them reaching your milestones. I just saw somebody pop up. Jess is in Oralville, Washington, two hours from my nachi. Cool. Okay. And so with this new approach, we're able to get to our outcomes a lot quicker. So just if you don't know me already, just a quick little bit about me. Mary Koska. And I've been an occupational therapist for 37 years. All but four were. Have been all pediatrics. And these are just a few fun pictures of me speaking at an event. The top center one is my staff. We do staff retreats a couple times a year. This is me just doing a podcast. I. My big thing is elevating others. So it's the kids, the parents, but also my staff and other business owners. So the pictures down below are from retreats I've done with other practice owners. And on the bottom right, where it has the countries. During the pandemic, I started a Facebook group to help everybody switch telehealth because that was like insane. We were like, how do we do what we do on telehealth? And it very rapidly, within six months grew to over 12,000 people in. I'm trying to remember how many countries. I think it was nine countries at least. It was a lot. And so the top two are the United States and Australia, and then after that, the Philippines or people in that group. So. And then we just kind of switched it to not just telehealth because obviously we didn't have to telehealth anymore. But as much as a challenging time, that was. It was a really creative time and everybody just really helped each other. So that was really fun. I feel like I went backwards. There we go. And this is my family. The upper left is my very First Ohana client. I actually started the practice because the birth to three center place I was working for closed and so started my own practice after that. And I've got a couple of boys and that's my husband. I love karate and hula and just doing fun things like that. So in my career I spent 17 years working in schools and really didn't have this. The knowledge that I needed to help our kids that had sensory challenges. And then in the past 17 years in my private practice, I've been doing it right. And it's crazy because the kids make like progress like 10 times faster. And so what was the difference? The main difference is that I took this comprehensive training, air sensory integration training. Jean Ayers started her research in the 50s actually and, and she was pretty ridiculed, ridiculed throughout the years, but she was way ahead of her time. Just really looking at the neuroscience and. And how do we help? How do we help kids? And that was like 120 hours specialty training. And boy, after that everything was different. And so that's when I really got to see the big changes and really understand what was going on in the nervous systems. So we are going to go ahead and get started on how to stop meltdowns. That's what we're here for. So here's the thing. A meltdown and a tantrum, they can look the same. So you'll see them just freaking out, screaming, shouting, swearing, biting, throwing, kicking, hitting, stomping. I don't have crying on here. But meltdowns can also just be like, you know, just really emotional, just really crying. So put in the chat. The kinds of behaviors that you see that you're challenged with might be these. It might be something else, but just type it in so you guys can realize you're not alone. Everything. Yeah. Crying, running away, head banging. Oh, yeah, Head banging. Hitting head on the ground. Screaming, throwing things. So you guys are not alone. Defiance. Yeah. Shoving things, throwing things, stomping. We have right now three really severe head kids of headbang. They're getting better already, but I'm seeing more of that scratching. Yeah, that's another one. I'm just gonna have some that are a little. Oh, spitting. That one's fun. Elopement. Yes. They just get into that flight and they just gotta run. So you can see you guys are all dealing with a lot hitting. What was that? Hitting? Books on the head. Yeah. Okay. And I just want to say I really feel for you guys because I know it's really hard. Really, really hard. Okay, so Moving on here. So let's just talk first about what a meltdown is not. So it's not just a tantrum. A tantrum is driven by a want or a need. Okay, so with a tantrum they'll check to see if you're paying attention and then it can stop abruptly when they get what they want. So the classic example is, you know, the kid wants a cookie, I want a cookie. Freaking out, Freaking out. You give them a cookie and then they eat the cookie. That's a tantrum, that's not a meltdown. They, they have some volitional control over what's going on. And I can, I, I can remember this one kiddo that I was subbing. I was covering another therapist. I didn't really know him very well and he looked like he has having a full on meltdown. And I just watched him. He went behind this crash pad. Then he peaked out to look at me. And because I, he was paying attention for my reaction. In that moment, I knew I was dealing with behavior and not a meltdown. So the tantrum needs an audience. You're not seeing any autonomic nervous system signs and they can return to normal like within five minutes, like the kid that gets the cookie and they're fine. I can remember the classic tantrum when my son was, I don't know, it's maybe one and a half or something. He was really into Jungle Book and I always was very strict on my screen time and like, you know, one, that's it, he tried everything, man, he just went ballistic. It was the first time I had seen him do that. It was amazing to me, everything. He was trying to get me to change my mind and I just stayed calm and I'm like, no, we're done. We saw it once, we're done. And, and eventually he, you know, he, he settled down. He didn't get what he wanted. But I know if I would have turned on the TV and let him watch it again, he would have just been fine. It was all drama. So. But also he didn't end up ever doing that again to watch TV because I held out. But man, it's hard to hold out through those. So what a sensory meltdown is, is it's a reaction to, a reaction to like overload, sensory overload or feeling overwhelmed. It's not volitional. So they don't care if somebody's paying attention or not. They're just in it and they're just going to keep going. Doesn't matter if anybody's watching. There's no goal. The behavior continues until they have calmed down or a loved one has helped them regain control. And these things can go on a long time. I've. I think the longest one we had in the clinic was like two hours. He just, he just, it just took that long to get him to be able to calm. I mean just there's. Their nervous system has just gone crazy. The other thing, the other clue is that you're going to see some autonomic nervous system signs that appear and they're not under the child's control. Okay, this is another clue for you to figure out which one you're in. So you'll see, you might see red ears, the top of the ears. You might see flatulence, hiccups, dilated pupils. And it takes, once they're in that mode, it can take 45, 60 minutes to return to normal activity because they are completely hijacked by their nervous system. And so we've developed this comchild code at Ohana. We call it our three Cs. And so these are things you can do that are really impactful. So the first thing is you have to remain calm. And it's really hard because you're getting over stimulated. Your heart rate's starting to go up. But you're the adult with the adult brain. So you have to do the things that calm yourself. So taking a deep breath and then they're gonna absorb your calm energy. So it's hard to do. But that's like a really big thing, is keep yourself calm. And the reason why is because we have mirror neurons. Just like if somebody yawns, we yawn. Our brains will imitate if you want to smile, if you want somebody to smile at you, just smile at them and you'll get a smile back. So we just tend to imitate each other. And so by us staying calm in the meltdown, they, they can help, it can help them observe our calm. And one of the things, I don't know if I have this somewhere else in the workshop, but one thing that helps my staff a lot because if they're loud, that's really hard on our nervous systems is they'll wear, they'll wear. There's different types of earplugs. There's one called loop that kind of look like little earrings. But the one they like the best is called flare F L A R E. And they're like little silicone funnels. You can hear everything. It just tones down the pitch so you don't feel fried. Your nervous system doesn't Feel fried. But that really helps a lot. The second C is calming the environment. One of the first things we'll do is we turn down the lights. The brain kind of just goes into like oh, it's time to go to sleep. Not that they're going to go to sleep, but there's an immediate like calming down of the nervous system when the lights go down. So we have lamps in every room. We just turn on the, turn off, turn off the overhead lights and, and have the little lamps in there. But you know what, half the time our clinic is kind of dark because the kids just don't like light. So we also have these galaxy lights that we really like a lot. That little bit of calm movement and color. Not the ones that look like a disco light. It has to be very slow moving and calming. That that works really well. And so here is your trigger spotter checklist. And I just thought it was funny to put Tigger on there. I'm just looking at the comments for a second there. Okay, so some things to kind of that are common triggers that you can be aware of is fluorescent lighting. The like I was saying our lights are down most of the time we have just lamps on. Visual clutter. Working in the schools of 17 years, I was astonished to see how much visual stimulations in every classroom. Like teachers like to cover every square inch of the ceiling of the walls. There's like no place for the eyes to just kind of rest. They, they don't, for some reason they just don't want to leave anything blank. And that's really over stimulating to our kids. You need to have kind of like one peaceful little spot. Like I've even seen like the calm down corners but they, that they're plastered with all these visuals. It's like it needs to be visually calming too. Visual movement, sounds, smells, touch, textures, all these things can be triggers for kids. So the number one mistake that parents make and teachers and grandparents, everybody, this is the number one mistake they make is that they're actually add stimulation instead of reducing it when they're in that space and talking is the most common one. You know, calm down, take a breath. You know, you just kind of keep starting know or just telling them to stop or whatever that all that talking, they're already overstimulated and now we're adding more to it and we're in close proximity. So that is the number one thing that, oh that we do wrong, you know that's going to make them more stimulated. This is the third C. Good timing for your Question. The third C is calm the child. So these are tools for the child themselves. For example, my absolute number one favorite is bubbles. And the reason why is because if you can get three slow breaths out of a child, they're going to activate their vagus nerve and they're going to start to calm down. So a typical. And the reason I like bubbles too is they take care of the first two Cs too. So the most common scenario, if a kid's starting to get dysregulated, we'll turn down the lights and we'll start. I'll just start blowing bubbles. And that keeps me calm while I'm kind of observing and figuring out what's going on. The bubbles are doing the second C. They're calming the environment and they're kind of distracting the child too, because the primitive part of their brain can not not notice. So it's like a lizard noticing a fly, right? They are upset, but their attention is getting drawn to something because there's a change in the environment. And even the most upset kid at some point will usually take the wand and want to try to do a bubble. So that's my favorite and most commonly used, used one in the clinic. And weighted blankets are really great. Kids are visual. I'd say auditory and visual are the two most common triggers. And so having headphones for kids is really super helpful, especially in public places, because man, things are loud, like toilets and hand dryers and all that stuff is so loud it just traumatizes the kids. So a lot of them won't wear them at first, though. And you have to kind of get them, get them used to it. So you have to be like, well, my turn and your turn. Like, just do it for a second. And usually I'll be like, la, la, la, la, la. Put it on, take it off so they can tell like, oh, things sound different when these are on Weighted vests, weighted vests. It depends on weighted vest. So here's the thing. Most of the kids that I see have weak cores. And if you put weight on weakness, it's not super helpful to the kids. They also should only be worn for about 20 minutes. So it depends on the child and their physical development. What works a little better sometimes, I think are the compression garments. So you can have like, like Under Armour type or. Or like, I'm trying to think. I use like rash guards, stuff like that, but. But make them snugly fit. So the compression garments usually work a little better. And then they're also supporting their core weakness. Another Thing that works really well is those, those neoprene wraps, they're about this wide. They're like, for weightlifting. And they have them like at Target and Walmart. They're like 10 bucks. That gives them some compression and it kind of gives them some support. And I'm just going to remind you, if you have a question, please put it in the questions, because I will answer all of them. And just squeezes, you know, hugs, that sort of thing. Just some deep pressure. And I would say, one of, you know, I said bubbles are my favorite. But this particular thing, Bubble Mountain is probably our number one most successful tool. And all it is is you get a bowl, you put like that much water in it, and one squirt of liquid soap. It can be hand soap, it can be dish detergent. And then you blow with a straw. And a lot of times I'll put two straws together so they can make it bigger. But what's nice about it is the longer they blow, the bigger it gets. And so they're reinforced for these long, slow breaths. And the vagus nerve that calms the nervous system is more activated on the exhale, or it is activated on the exhale. And it's fun. I think it's like if my kids were little again, I would do it, what they call it, the witching hour. Like right before dinner, whenever he's hangry, I would do it while. While I'm cooking, I would have them do this. And if you don't want them to tip the bowl, I would get like a casserole dish so that it's more flat and it's even more fun. Like when you do it with siblings or, you know, more than one person. We do it with the kids a lot. And another thing that people don't always think about, and I think the kids are really lacking in their outside time, but just being outside can really, really calm the nervous system. I, we. I do it for myself when I'm dysregulated and I only have a few minutes between kids. I. I'll just walk outside for a minute and I'll look up at the clouds and take a few breaths and. And it resets me. So, you know, they've got too much screen time, too much inside time. They need the natural environment. So here's a summary of the three Cs. The calm child code. Calm yourself, calm the environment, and then calming the child. We talked about the exact signs to know the difference between a meltdown and tantrum and how not to make it worse. Like by adding stimulation, talking and under just understanding that alone is a game changer. And you have the trigger spotter checklist to help prevent them. And you know the number one mistake to avoid so you don't make it worse, you learn the C code. So I'm just curious, has this been valuable for you and what is your biggest takeaway so far? And while you type that in, I'm going to kind of look at these notes, see how the SPO is good. Oh yeah. Car washes would be very over stimulating. Right. Because it's kind of predictable and loud and a lot of visual stimulation. Yeah, I can see that would be really overwhelming. Yeah. So for tantrums, like I said, the tantrum is. The approach for tantrums is different than meltdowns. So with tantrums, the big thing is to. To not give in to it and to find another alternative. So the thing is like when you intermittently reinforce a tantrum, it's like gambling. It's like they hit the jackpot and so it reinforces it and they do it more. So the word no is often a trigger that makes kids have a tantrum. And the tantrum actually they can work themselves so much that they overstimulate themselves and turn it into a meltdown. So I know it gets tricky. It's not black and white, but some of the words that can help you are saying instead of saying no, like think first. If you need to say no, think. Because the thing is, a lot of times we'll say no. They get upset and then we're like, oh, really? It's not that big a deal. Then we let. Let them have whatever they wanted. But then now we've reinforced it, so it's better to say let me think about it or yes, when or not yet. Those things are help. Okay, so your takeaways, the three C's. Wonderful info. Yay. Good. I love it. It looks like you like the bubble mountain. Yeah, the bubble mountain, man. That is our number one thing to help them. You'll have a recording. It'll get sent to you. You won't get the PowerPoint, but you'll get the recording. I'm just looking through to see what else was valuable. Yeah, I know. Sometimes hugging can add to the frustration. You have to just know your kid. Calming yourself. Yay. I'm glad somebody. I'm glad you wrote that because calming yourself is huge. It is so hard because we feel our nervous system is getting hijacked. But we're the grown up, we can stop ourselves. We have the mature brain. And we can say, you know, we can tell ourselves to take a breath. And like I said, bubbles, I don't know what to do. Like, and I've got 37 years into this, and a lot of times I'm like, what's going on here? Is this meltdown is the tantrum, you know, I'm trying to figure it out. I'll just start blowing bubbles so I at least stay calm while I'm trying to figure it out. Great. So got a lot out of it. I'm so glad. Like I said, all questions, please put them in the question otherwise. In the under the questions otherwise, I won't get to them noticing the difference between, yeah, they're very. They look the same, but now you have better detective skills. Okay. So obviously, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what I could share with you and what I know. And there's so much more I'd love to teach you. This is just, you know, short little webinar, so I'd love to be able to accelerate your progress to help your child. And honestly, I am on this mission to help a hundred thousand kids by. And their parents by 2029. And the reason 2029 is that's when my clinic turns 21. And I've always said, I just want to help as many kids as possible. And I was laying my hammock, looking up at the clouds, up to the heavens. I'm like, I need a number. Because, you know, it's just I wanted to have more specifical. And then my calling was a hundred thousand kids. I'm like, that's a lot of kids. So. But that's the answer I got. So that's why I made. I have to go beyond my clinic. I have to figure out other ways to help. Right? So that's why I made our ohana Sensory tools. So I made an app, and I made a. I have a kit. So it has a lot of the things. Things to help you get started. And I just published. I just published my book that's Parents Guide Childhood Meltdowns from Distress to Success. And here's a little comment from Britney that she just really found the app so helpful. And so you don't want to just roll the dice. You want to actually intentionally increase your parenting skills so that you can get rapid results. And oops, I went backwards. Don't know why I went backwards there. Okay, here we go. And here's Diana. She got a lot of help from the app. And in my book, I have a great story that she told me. Let's see if I can find the picture real quick. She had this child that. There's a lot of stories in the book, but she had this child, she's teaching a homeschool, teaching at a farm. The, the homeschool kids would come and then she had a group to teach them at the farm. And she had this one kiddo that was not behaving well, but she had just started learning the difference. Just pretty much like what I've just talked to you about. That's one of the first videos in the app about the difference between a meltdown and a tantrum. And she's like, you know, I think he's having a meltdown, not a tantrum. I think he's overloaded. So she took him aside to picnic table away from the other kids. Instead of disciplining him right in front of the kids, she just took him aside and just asked him what was going on. And he said, I feel like there's angry monkeys in my head, so I have that story in here. And so she had him take some deep breaths and he felt better. And then they went back. Then next time he came, he went up to her, he said, I need your help again. It the monkeys are back. And so, and that was literally just. She had just started watching the videos in the app. So that was just. That just made me so happy. So you're invited to join our sensory hero community. And if you want to take back to, to get on the fast track to becoming a highly skilled parent. And with this, with the app, there's a 30 day challenge. And between that and the book, you will be in the top 1% of parents. Because while these problems, these challenges are really common, this is just not common knowledge. People just don't even know that they're. They're two different things, Tantrum and meltdown. So you can really make an impact. So I encourage you to check out the book and the app and let me know. I can tell you a little more about it. If you'd like to hear more about it, just type in yes. Oh, wow. The profound need for this information. I agree. And I guess that's why the answer I received from the heavens was 100,000. 100,000. I'm like, okay, I'm going to do it. All right, so here's some more information. So the book is literally like, I just got my copy. Like I just published it. So first I'll tell you a little about the book, a little more about the book. So you'll what's in the book is you'll discover why traditional discipline fails kids with sensory needs and what works. I go into the book's actually divided into sections of of those three Cs so there's a whole section that's just for you and it goes into a lot of depth on see if I can find it real quick for you like just how you can calm yourself so you actually learn your own sensory system. So for example if you are visually overstimulated and you're oh you know just that can be a lot for you and your kid loves to run around and spin and that makes you feel sick then going through I have things like this checklist so you get your own sensory snapshot so you can find out like you can tune in like oh I get really I'm auditory sensitive or you know or I need this to feel better. So the there's a whole section for you so you understand yourself better. There's a five item sensory first aid kit. So like what you should have. Well my pictures aren't coming up. Oh darn it. Sorry about that. So so you know what to just have with you at all times and I can tell you one of those items is bubbles. I would not leave home without bubbles. I can't remember this one car ride coming back and my son screamed. The entire car ride was like 45 minutes and if I had those bubbles if I would just pulled over and done that I bet he would have it would helped him so much. So you're going to learn a lot about the about co regulation and so how your calm helps become your child's compass and I'm sorry for some reason my pictures aren't showing up. Technology there's always something and then the behavior map to help you shift from chaos to connection and oops. I go back one in real world hacks for meltdowns so just how to deal with There was a cute picture of a kid in their bare feet here trying to get socks on but just real world hacks Every every chapter has a section for hacks like things you can do to make it easier like the store, the sock battles, all that kind of thing. And just one trick I can tell you on socks turn them inside out so those seams are not rubbing against their toes and how to create a sensory friendly home without making a complete makeover. In the picture that's not showing up here is a picture of a little pup tent. That's one of the things I really love. Just kids have a Little place to escape to really helps them a lot. Goodness gracious. Why is my pictures now that. Okay, so here is just a little about the app. So the app is. It's a 30 day challenge. There's over 30 videos and they're under. I say over because there's some bonuses in there, but they're under 15 minutes each. So you can just watch them once a day. And, and it's me just talking and explaining and there's resources in there and you can even do like, there's, there's things to reinforce your learning. So you can type in the answer to the question and it'll email it to you. So then you get the email and you're like, oh yeah, to help you just remember it. So you're going to learn how to stop meltdowns before they start. An OT Crystal was going through the app and she, and even as an ot, she just found it really helpful. And it's a web based app, so you just save it to your home screen or watch it on the computer either way. And the cool thing about the app too, when I was figuring all this out, I had a lot of parents say, you know, I don't really like talking about my kid in these Facebook groups and you know, publicly, but they want to have a support system. So I chose this particular hosting, this particular place to build my app because they had essentially kind of like a Facebook community within the app so people can, you know, connect and bond and share and ask questions and I can answer the questions. So it's really cool. And so you'll understand the why and so much more. And then that is a picture of my book. So I'll just hold up the book. And so to celebrate my book launch, I have made some really cool bonuses. I mean, you, you can just order it on Amazon today if you want, but if you order it directly from me and. Oh, I forgot, I got to get the link. Hang on, I gotta do something here. You know, I think I'm like already and then. And I always forget something. Okay, I just want to get the link so I can put it in the chat for you. Okay, back to the slideshow. I. I'll post it a few times. But if you buy it directly from me, you get a whole bunch of freebies, a whole bunch of bonuses and so. Oh my goodness. How did I get way up here? I'm sorry, you guys, I gotta. Somehow I lost my place. You're getting a quick, a quick review. Okay. In Canva, when you do it full screen, like this, it's. It's a little tricky to navigate sometimes. Can't see everything that you want to see. Almost back to where you were. Look away from the screen if I'm over stimulating you. Okay. Okay. Here we were. Okay. So yeah, in just 15 minutes a day, the videos and there's the comment. So we're about here, I think. Yeah. So to celebrate the book launch, this is where I was. So I have just this special bonuses and so you get a whole bunch of stuff with it. So get a free audio book that'll come in an email right away. You get some printables. One of them is like that. It's a. It's a graph that shows like the difference between Meltdown and Tantrum. And I'm going to do a Q and A and the shipping's included. It's not in the App Store. You would get the app through me. It's going to be in the App Store. I'm just in the process with Apple to do that still. And so this. And since I'm. And since I'm on this mission to help wean more kids, I did a bundle. So in the bundle you can actually get the app for free. So if you buy 10 books, so you just pay for the 10 books, you'll get the lifetime access to the Sensory Hero app, which is normally 197 the app. If you do it, if you do it monthly, it's I think it's like 29amonth. And then you can cancel at any time. But with this bundle, like if you want to get 10 books, because you're like, I know people I want to give this to as a gift, help, you know, just help spread the word to help more parents, then you'll actually get it for free. And I'm doing something really special too. That for you is a thank you for you sharing this with other people. You can have a 15% affiliate link for it, which is great. I've never done that before. And you get the audiobook and you get the printables and you get the Q and A. So it's really quite an incredible opportunity. So that's the link to get that. And then so I encourage you to act because it's, you know, it's a rare opportunity. So in 30 days, your confidence can just be dramatically increased and you will see amazing results with your child. You'll know the difference between the Tantrum and the Meltdown. You have lots of strategies to try. You'll feel more successful because you're really Helping and more most importantly, you'll be your child's sensory hero. So here is the QR code and I also put the link in the chat for those, for the forgetting it through me because it is the first printing. Like, if you're like, I want this book right now, then just go on Amazon and get it and you'll have it in two days. But if you want all the freebies, it will be about three weeks till you get the book because I literally just published it and when I get my author copies, it just, it's my first order of them and it just takes a little longer because Amazon would rather you buy it through them. So I'll stay on for some question and answers and here is your free, free gift. Oh, I was going to do that before the or after the Q and A. So I better go back to that. Let's go to Q A. I gotta find where the questions are. Q and a, 24 questions. Okay, here we go. Do we get a certificate? Know, I, I don't have a certificate set up for this webinar and it's free, so I don't. But if you, you know, if you really need something or want something, I would say you can send me an email and then I could make one for you. I'll put my email in the chat. I'll just send you my personal email. Mary pasca.com because I'm that old, I can make, I can make you a certificate if it's helpful to you for some reason. Okay. How do you get help and gain success when all of the children with extraordinary abilities are in one class and the behaviors feed off one another? I've seen some success in a few, but now I'm seeing regression due to the behaviors of new students. That is a really, really, really big challenge because even just seeing kids one on one is such a big challenge. So I would say you definitely need to get as much support in there as you can. And I think as you're having new eyes, you can kind of start to see. Like, how do I, how do I prevent some of this stuff? You know, do I have place for the kids to escape to, like a little tent where they can, with a soft blanket and where the light is lower, you know, just applying these things. But you know, right now I, when I wrote my book, I didn't. I did a lot of research while I was doing it. The last time I had looked the kids that have sensory processing problems was like 1 in 24. It's 1 in 6 now. So that means, you know, you got a few in every classroom. So I would definitely increase opportunities for movement and decrease the stimulation. Proprioception, which is input to the muscles and the joints goes to the limbic system and has a calming effect on the nervous system. So any kind of heavy work, have the kids do desk push ups or jump up and down, anything that works their muscles and has resistance. I like doing like push of war where like they just push as hard as they can on my hands, like push the mountain over and they just contract all their muscles like that and then it'll calm them down. The printouts are, there's some printouts with the bonuses. Yeah. If the kids don't know how to blow, then you're going to do a different activity. That's just one particular one. But even the kids, like I had a kiddo yesterday, she doesn't know how to blow yet, but she was trying so I would just keep doing it. And then eventually they might. But you're just going to do a different calming activity. And there's a ton in my app, in my book, you'll get a replay. So that's how you'll have the slides. You can share the replay. How to get them to use headphones. I mentioned that earlier. Kind of like getting kids used to wearing glasses. You just, you model it, you put them on yourself and you do like my turn, your turn. But you only put them on for like a half a second. And I like to make a sound while I'm doing it like so that they go, oh, it sounds different. And then you gradually build it up. So it might be half a second, that might be a second, then it might be a few seconds. Might work your way up to 30 seconds and then a minute and then gradually you can build it up and at some point something clicks in their head where they're like, oh, this helps me. And then they're willing to do it. The other thing is I find if they're really squishy on the head, they don't like them. So I find the, the really inexpensive ones. You can get them at Harbor Freight for like five bucks. Plus if they break them, then you haven't lost a lot of money. Are actually the best ones these because they're, they're not so squishy. When I, when I was getting stuff from my kit, I ordered about 20 different pair of, of these noise reduction headphones. They were all too tight except for the least expensive ones. And they were the only comfortable ones that our kids will wear in the clinic. So is bubble wrap included amongst the squeezes? I'm not sure what you mean by bubble wrap and the squeezes. I'm not. Maybe you can clarify. My son cries hysterically when going through car washes. Is that normal? I think I already answered that one. My son has pica, so I have to be careful with bubbles. Yeah. So you would just do a different activity. And for those that don't know, pika is like when they want to eat everything and it's really challenging. We had one kiddo that we had to see him at the end of the day and we had to take 30 minutes to remove all. All the garbage cans. Like all the stuff he would go for. He just wanted to eat plastic. I feel free. That's really hard when they just want to eat everything. So yeah, you're just going to do a different technique but for. So you could do a pinwheel instead or you could do a blowing on a feather. Lots of things like that. Should I avoid taking him through the car washes completely? Well, if it is really overwhelming him and putting him in complete distress, I wouldn't do it. If he. If, if you. You could also find a way to make it more comfortable. Like maybe he wears a hat and pulls the hat visor down over his head so he's not sitting seen so much. A hat and headphones. If he'll put those on, then maybe he can tolerate it. What can my son's teacher do when he has meltdowns at school? He's in kindergarten and he's five. He doesn't respond to the other peers, teachers. Only his homeroom teacher can calm him down. He will go on top of the slide and yell at the other peers. So ideas to help. My son's teachers also calls the teachers idiots and he picks that up from a friend. I would just really suggest you get the book and the app and really it's really hard for me to give you a specific suggestion without really knowing your son. But there's a lot of, you know, I think that if you go through these things and you know, share the reason, a lot of teachers don't even have any idea about any of this stuff. So you could share it with the teachers too. One of the things I talk about in the book is like really starting to notice patterns like when's it happening? So like reset. Like sometimes they don't do well on really unstructured, chaotic, visually and auditorily chaotic times, which recess typically is. And so sometimes they need a quieter activity to during do during that time or they need like a. A time to, like, cool down after it. There's just so many variables. But, yes, in general, a weighted blanket can help with carides, for sure. There's also, like, weighted animals, and you can also just open up their favorite a. I mean, an animal that they like, and you can put like, something heavy in a Ziploc bag. It could be like, rice or something like that to make it heavy. But weighted items in general are really helpful. One thing I really, really like that I use a lot in the clinic are the weighted balls that use for exercise. So the three, like three to five pounds, usually that you can get them at Target and Walmart in Amazon. But, you know, kids like balls. They like rolling them and stuff. So. And then that also develops their core because when they lift them up, they have to, like, engage their core, but they get that heavy input to their muscles and joints. That's calming. Do I have any tips to help a child calm down from a tantrum versus a meltdown? Well, just being calm and patient, honestly. Because if it's a pure tantrum, they. They will figure out that their behavior is not working. And it's just. It's just a challenge, but you just kind of have to not give in, you know, if. If, you know, it's a tantrum. And the other suggestions that I had too, of you want to really know, kind of notice what kinds of things are tig triggering the tantrum. And oftentimes it's just like the word no or something. So you learn other things to do, like saying not yet or yes when running from the teachers and resource officer. So she's in. In flight. So scary. I actually. I actually picked the location in my clinic. It took me six months to find a place because I did not want to be on a busy street that I wanted to be centrally located in the town. I. Because so many of our kids do want to elope. And so we're located. We kind of have our own. We're next to target, and we have our, like, our own little separate parking lot so we're not on a, like, busy street. And there's been a few times I was super grateful for that. So I think the thing is you have to kind of find out, figure out why, you know, sometimes kids run because they want attention and it's a game. And you can kind of tell because they'll stop and they'll look like, are they chasing me? If it's just like a panic, like, they're just freaking out and running Then something triggered it. And you want to try to start preventing that trigger. So something's just making them just like. It's really no different than if I put a spider in your face and. And you like freaked out and ran that. That's. That's when it's like a nervous system thing versus like a game of chase. So you have to kind of figure out what are the triggers for it. What's the name of the earpods that calm him? So there is something called flare F L A R E. And those are the ones that are like little silicone funnels. And depending on if it's appropriate for the kid, if they're safe with them and all that. It's helpful for the kids too. But that's. That's used more by the adults, the parents than the therapists. And the app is a sensory hero app. You can. If you only want the app and you don't want the special with the book, there is Ohana Sensory Tools is my regular website. And like, if you only want the app, you could just go there. But you can get. You can get it for free if you want to get a bundle of books. I already answered about the certificate. You can email me. I think I answered all those. I'm just looking at. Okay. Shoes. Shoes and socks will turn the seams inside out. Help him keep his socks and shoes on. Yeah, they can. I mean, that's probably the first thing that we do. And shoes. You kind of want to make sure the shoes are comfortable. When I've had kids that are really, really sensitive about shoes, I'll put my hand inside the shoe and feel around. And a lot of times it's not very comfortable in there. There's like really hard seams and stuff. So. So when you go shopping for. I think that's why a lot of kids like the Crocs, because they're really smooth. But when you go shopping for shoes, feel inside the shoe and, and. And try to get some. A shoe that's very smooth inside. For socks, you can turn them inside out. That often does the trick right there. But there's also. You can just look up. There's tons of companies that sell super soft and seamless undergarments and socks and things. So you can buy seamless clothing and that helps a lot. Does this work for 12 and up? Yep. And adults. I mean, this stuff works for everybody. Am I considering to speak or present in person anytime soon? I. I don't have anything planned at this point. I'm open to it, but I Can reach more people this way. Let's see how many. Yeah, we've had over a hundred on, on here. My daughter has problems identifying when she is getting overwhelmed and stimulated. Any tips? 1. I don't know how old your daughter is, but one thing we do in the clinic and a lot of schools are doing this, but I love the Zones of self regulation program. They learn how to identify their own triggers, how to calm themselves and so they kind of do it by energy levels. So like blue is low energy, so that's like when you're sick or tired. Green is when you're feeling good, calm, ready to learn, happy. Yellow is you're starting to feel like you're losing control. You're not out of control, but you might be excited, frustrated, but you're just feeling that energy build. Yeah, they're not good or bad, they're just more like energy levels. And then red is loss of control. And so red is like, you know when you've lost it and you've yelled or you hit or they're going crazy at a birthday party or you know your favorite team won and everybody's throwing popcorn everywhere. So that's when you've lost schedule. So there's, it's a great program and it, it teaches the kids all these different levels and how to tune into themselves and then how to move between the levels. So I love Zones of Self regulation for that. Okay. Hello, I am a teacher of the Learning center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and we have a student who's four and has been observed three times because since he was two year old in the two year old class. He definitely has ADHD or add, I don't think necessarily autism, but maybe he's unschool readiness on a school readiness which is like a scholarship for low income families. He's out of control every afternoon. He won't look at you when you talk to him. He only wants to do what he wants when he wants. There's not one minute of focus in a child. I know it sounds like tantrums, but so much more. The observationist said three different times that yes, I see red flags, but she can't say for sure he needs to be diagnosed. Here's the problem. Mom refuses to get him tested even though it would be free to him. It's very difficult for the teachers. For the past two years, mom thinks he's just a kid, but she is an assistant teacher for the upper school. This is why I have not kicked him out of the program. Any advice? Wow, that's kind of a interesting situation. A lot of parents don't want to get their kids diagnosed or get labeled, and that's understandable. But I think that the app and the book are a good place to start for your team and for the mom. But he sounds like he could really use some occupational therapy and they don't have to have, like, a hard label to get the services. But you said she didn't want to get. She's just not ready to get assessed. It does sound like he probably has more than just, like, tantrums. So I would just start with the things that, That I was sharing and just try to try to figure out, like, what things are triggering him. He's probably just super overstimulated in the classroom. Would be my guest. So, you know, you can figure out, like, observe him and see, like, when is he better, you know, is it when it's quieter? Is it when there's movement, that sort of thing? Hard to say without me actually, you know, being fully involved in assessing him. But. But yeah, it's kind of hard. Parents aren't always. Aren't always ready for help. Okay, I'll put my email in here. So those that wanted a certificate, I can email you just like a certificate of completion or something. Okay, now I think I got through all those questions. I'm going to just glance at the chat and see. Thank you, guys. Thanks for helping me reminding people to put them in the questions. I'm not going to be able to. To email you guys directly. You need to email me and then I'll respond. Okay, I see you all putting your emails in here, but that'll be. It'll be easier for me if you just email me requesting it. Okay. Oh, Haley, I didn't realize you were on here. My CEO was on here. I didn't know she was going to help out today. So I'll give you the email, but like I said, it's too much for me to go through the. If you just email me, I'll send you one. Okay. And then I already answered the question about how to help with getting the headphones. Do you guys need the link again for the book or are you good with that? I see the problem. Oh, my gosh. Haley. I was the one that. Not sending it to everybody. I didn't realize that. Okay, sorry, guys. There it is. All right, so everybody's got the email for the book and the bonuses. You don't need that. Again, sorry, guys. I didn't realize I. I wasn't clicked on to send it to everybody. So I was typing in my email, but nobody saw it. Oh, thanks, Haley. Haley to the rescue. All right, all right. Hope we did it. Still can't see the email. Seriously? Let me try typing again. All right, you're welcome, everybody. Thank you so much. For the person on their phone, you're going to get the replay, so, you know, you can just kind of go to the end of it and you'll see it. But we've also put the link in here for how to get to it. All right. All right. Thanks, everybody. Have a great rest of your day. And what? Let's go down here. That's so strange. How did I get there? I thought I was at the end. I'm just seeing if I missed any slides. I think I'm done. It.